Nowadays, the necessity of technical support outsourcing appears to be a burning question for many IT product companies. It is closely related to the good old question: what to outsource and what to keep in-house? Considering the fact that software support and maintenance is a vital aspect of the final project, a thoughtful strategy must be developed to give an exhaustive answer.
Have you been wondering whether to outsource technical support services or not? Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of this practice to find out whether it will work well for you.
What is Outsourced Technical Support
The practice of outsourced technical support implies delegating software maintenance tasks to the outside company. Such IT support solutions often include bug-fixing, testing, and troubleshooting diverse issues that arise with your product. I’d like to get more in detail and clarify the pros and cons of these services.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Technical Support & Maintenance Outsourcing
Technical support outsourcing has some advantages that tempt companies to delegate software maintenance to the IT helpdesk partners. To begin with, it gives you the chance to scale up or down the support team based on the volume of current problems and tasks. Such flexibility relieves the pains of hiring skillful professionals and firing them when seasonal spikes are over. In addition, in case you decide to engage foreign specialists, you can get day-and-night IT support services. Usually, an offshoring team serves a time zone different from yours and a few others with the help of rotating shifts. That’s how tech support outsourcing can provide 24/7 access to the helpdesk.
Among the disadvantages of outsourced technical support services, there is poor quality control. Many tech companies prefer to build their own team of IT support engineers because of the ability to have a direct influence on the product’s success and customer experience. What is more, external specialists may not have the narrow technical expertise and proper background required for the maintenance and improvement of your product, compared to the deep knowledge of the in-house developers. Finally, it’s important to take customer feedback into account to decide on what to work next. Accordingly, when you turn to IT helpdesk outsourcing in such tasks as bug-fixing, you miss out on the valuable insights needed for taking your business to the next level. When your in-house employees are responsible for software support, they can rapidly provide you with useful information about the problem that has to be solved. On the contrary, it takes much longer to investigate the situation and take action to fix it in the case of outsourced tech support.
Alcor can help you to build the infrastructure needed for the existence and operation of a company’s IT environment. We are responsible for the delivery, installation, and maintenance of the necessary physical systems, such as hardware, storage, routers to drive business functions in the office premises. To run the process as smoothly as possible, our customers always keep in touch with our IT manager, who takes care of setting up all the essential devices and addresses any further issues.
What is Alcor Turnkey IT Support Solution
Our turnkey IT support services can be leveraged as a part of the bigger solution – your own R&D center. Alcor’s real estate managers can find outstanding office space for your team, negotiate with the landlord, review lease agreements and check all workplace facilities. However, we see that today many enterprises prefer to run businesses on WFH mode, so they terminate tenancy contracts because of the ongoing pandemic. That’s why we are ready to establish remote offices for your software developers and ensure their high-level working conditions in these unprecedented times.
Alcor IT Support Solution vs. Outsourced Technical Support
Alcor believes that business process outsourcing services can significantly boost an enterprise’s performance. By delivering secondary functions to the vendor, you can focus on the product – your main asset. Therefore, we are ready to take care of all your operational tasks, but software development and maintenance. To deal with this matter, we advise you to outsource the recruitment process and hire offshore engineers with the help of our recruitment team. These IT specialists will work in-house at your own premises in Ukraine with full back-office assistance by Alcor. Such a solution has many benefits in comparison to software support outsourcing and here’s why:
- You keep your revenue-generating expertise
To be honest, the delegation of software maintenance doesn’t work for IT companies due to the importance of this step to further product development. When delivering this crucial process, you lose your main expertise. This fact can have a negative influence on your income and even scare off investors. In a nutshell, the availability of talented in-house developers is an aspect that secures your competitive edge.
- You maintain full control
When you outsource technical support, you lose a great deal of information about the current stage of product development. You have minimal influence on the external specialists that can result in multiple misunderstandings. All these facts combined lead to a great number of adjustments and fixes, which basically mean additional expenses.
- You don’t have to worry about your IP rights
One of the main concerns in the case of tech support outsourcing is the security of your intellectual property. Delegating this process implies sharing valuable data with an IT support provider that has a wide range of risks. Instead of that, it is better to engage reliable and talented IT headhunters to recruit gifted developers, so that you will be the 100% IP owner.
People.ai is an IT product company that helps enterprises to optimize marketing processes and sales through their own AI-powered platform. They recognized all the mentioned perks of collaborating with Alcor when they delegated all back-office operations to our team. Our IT and real estate managers established tech and security infrastructure in the chosen location just in 4 weeks. Within this time we prepared perfect office premises for the company to move in, our recruiters hired over 25 talented professionals and our legal team assisted in the required legal operations. As a result, People.ai received full control over their brand-new R&D center in Ukraine together with all IP rights.
Consider Alcor as Your Trusted Long-Term BPO Provider
Taking all these points into consideration, the decision to outsource tech support is not the best option for IT product companies for several reasons. Starting with poor quality control and ending with intellectual property risks, external technical support service appears to be a challenge for both small startups and big enterprises.
All our BPO services together can make up your turnkey R&D office, which is the most comprehensive solution. It comprises recruitment, legal compliance, accounting, and real estate services combined with IT infrastructure setup. When such configuration is implemented, you don’t have to worry about any of the secondary processes but focus on your business growth and development, instead.